Nader's Raided

Charged with Selling Cocaine, Soap Hunk Michael Nader Heads for Rehab

It's not a nice chic place. It's the dregs," NYPD Sgt. Andrew McInnis says of the allegedly illegal after-hours club in Manhattan's East Village where a predawn police raid on Feb. 24 netted 24 arrests for drug sales or possession. And it's the last place his fans might have expected to find Michael Nader, the swarthy soap star who for the past 10 years has portrayed All My Children's dashing Count Dimitri Marick. Yet there was Nader, 56, being led from the club in handcuffs for allegedly selling a $20 bag of cocaine to an undercover cop—a charge that carries a maximum 25-year prison sentence.

"He has made it clear he did not sell anything," says Nader's agent Arthur Toretzky. Still, the actor, who was freed after posting $500 bail and faces a March 26 court hearing, plans to check himself into a rehab hospital, says Toretzky. "When he has completed the 30-day program, he hopes to return to All My Children."

If AMC will have him. "No decision has been made," says an ABC spokeswoman. In 1998 Nader pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and, according to the Suffolk County, N.Y., district attorney's office, was ordered to spend 20 days in rehab. With him at that arrest was Lindsay, then 13, his daughter by ex-wife Robin. As for his latest bust, Nader, who is now single, is "optimistic he will get back on track," says Toretzky, "and get all this behind him."